Why Pre-Cut Vegetables Cost So Much At The Grocery Store

Let me start this off by saying I'm not a pre-cut veggie and fruit hater. As someone with executive dysfunction, I totally get that having pre-cut produce can be a huge lifesaver for people with physical or mental health struggles. As long as you wash your produce anyway and know some good tricks for keeping vegetables fresh even when they're cut, you'll be golden. But the fact of the matter is, you're going to be paying a premium for those pre-cut vegetables.

The top reason for the higher price is labor, pure and simple. When you buy a whole vegetable at the grocery store, it's been harvested, cleaned, and delivered. This takes a decent amount of labor, too, but you're still looking at way fewer steps than pre-cut vegetables. Those veggies get extra washes, they're sometimes peeled, and they're sliced and diced for you. On top of that, pre-cut veggies need to be packaged since they can't just be rolling free on the shelves like vegetables that still have their skin on. That's extra time and extra material cost along with the extra labor, tallying up fast and leaving you saying goodbye to a bigger chunk of your wallet.

Since cost is such an important thing to consider when perusing your grocery store's produce section, you should know what kind of price leap you're looking at. Vice found that buying pre-cut food could cost you around a hundred bucks a month back in 2018. We all know that inflation (and some other notable factors) have led to grocery costs soaring in recent years, so you could easily be looking at triple that price tag a few years later, which was already triple the cost of whole vegetables at the time. Prices vary from state to state and even from city to city, but one thing's clear: You'll always be paying more for those pre-cut vegetables.

The real question, then, is: If you have the physical ability to cut your own vegetables, do you value your time and reserving energy more, or do you value saving money more? Both are valid options, especially in this busy modern world where we're all constantly on that grind. It's up to you to decide what to prioritize, and no one's saying those priorities can't change between trips to the grocery store. Really, as long as you're finding a way to get in your daily veggies, your health and your stomach will thank you regardless. Still, I might suggest swapping to frozen veggies instead of freshly cut ones for a little time-saving and money-saving both.